I appreciate the call for civility and reason. There is less and less of each, on both sides, as time goes by.

I avoid obsession, and have steered clear of the chaos surrounding both of these women; so, I cannot speak intelligently to their positions. I would like to know more; but finding an unbiased source seems impossible, even if one slogs through primary data, assuming one can find it.

The Achilles heel on both sides in the trans/anti-trans war is the mutual conflation of fact and belief. Gender dysphoria and the efficacy of its treatment protocol are facts; "being transgender" is a belief. Trans people tend to conflate having gender dysphoria with "being trans" because this belief gives their suffering meaning; anti-trans people tend to conflate the treatment protocol with "being trans" in that they see transitioning as a statement that "being trans" is real. Trans activists speak of "trans rights," when such rights have no more of a legal basis than "Catholic rights" or "Muslim rights"; anti-trans activists want to deny medical treatment to victims of gender dysphoria because "being trans," in their eyes, isn't real. And neither side sees its own error or understands the error on the other side.

It is because fact and belief are two different things that there is room for discussion between figures like Rowling and the trans community. Admittedly, I don't know either woman; but, while Parker seems to my casual view to be somewhat reactionary, Rowling has not impressed me that way. It would be nice to talk with her.

Thanks for making an appeal for reason and comity.